Not A Common Lip-Sync problem

[Agent_C]

ATI TV Wonder Pro
MMC 6.13
XP Media Center Edition

When using the TV function to view live video (any input), lip-sync is
noticeably off. Off to the point of making is somewhat unwatchable.
However, when I record the video to an MPG file, the link-sync is just
fine.

Lip-Sync is also fine in Windows Movie Maker, so the problem is
obviously not with the card, or the OS, but with the Multimedia Center
Software.

Anyone experienced this? (Off on viewing but not in the file)

Thanks,

A_C

 

[Larry Johnson]

My knee jerk reaction to your problem is that you are watching the video on
the computer monitor and listening to audio over the camcorder speakers.
But, since you did not actually say what the audio or video source was, i.e.
VCR, cable television signal and whatever it is you consider "live" video.
In my video dictionary "live" would mean shooting with a video camera and
feeding that signal to the TV card.

Still, my guess is your are not feeding "live" video to any of the inputs
and are simply experiencing the normal lag between the playback from the
camcorder and picture display on the computer monitor. This is the same sort
of thing that happens when viewers call a television or radio show and the
announcer tells them to turn down the sound - there is always an electronic
lag. Signal does not travel instantaneously over those wires...even in your
little home system.
--
Larry Johnson
Digital Video Solutions
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.digitalvideosolutions.com
877-227-6281 Toll Free Sales Assistance
386-672-1941 Customer Service
386-672-1907 Technical Support
386-676-1515 Fax

 

[Agent_C]

My knee jerk reaction to your problem is that you are watching the video on
the computer monitor and listening to audio over the camcorder speakers.

Broadcast TV through the tuner.

A_C

 

[Larry Johnson]

Sound over sound card, or what?

Broadcast TV through the tuner.

A_C

 

[Agent_C]

Sound over sound card, or what?

The ATI TV Wonder requires an external connection to the sound card.
Card-out to Line-in. This has been the arrangement with most all ATI
video capture cards for years. I’m acutely familiar with this, as I’ve
been using the All-In-Wonder cards since 1998.

As I previously mentioned, the lip-sync is just fine on the finished
MPG files and in Windows Movie Maker (on-screen and file), so I doubt
it’s a hardware configuration issue. This seems to be limited to the
ATI Multimedia Center software.

A_C

 

[T Shadow]

The ATI TV Wonder requires an external connection to the sound card.
Card-out to Line-in. This has been the arrangement with most all ATI
video capture cards for years. I'm acutely familiar with this, as I've
been using the All-In-Wonder cards since 1998.

As I previously mentioned, the lip-sync is just fine on the finished
MPG files and in Windows Movie Maker (on-screen and file), so I doubt
it's a hardware configuration issue. This seems to be limited to the
ATI Multimedia Center software.

A_C

Newer AIW(i.e. 9600) use digital sound with the newer drivers. Changed with
5.4 IIRC.

 

[Larry Johnson]

Hey, I was just trying to help tech out the issue. Whether or not this was
an ATI AIW card made not difference to me. Your original explanation left
out many things someone trying to help tech needs to know. No one can
automatically assume you are doing everything properly because you are
"acutely" familiar with the product. If you have been using these cards
since 1998 you have my sympathy.

Your problem could be that you are using your present one on the minimum
system requirements, which is where most people have problems witn any video
capture product. Other than that assumption I would suggest you get
something a little more advanced along with a better computer system.

I am "acutely" aware you don't like what I have said, but what the hell. I
really am "acutely" aware that I don't give a crap!!

 

[Agent_C]

Hey, I was just trying to help tech out the issue. Whether or not this was
an ATI AIW card made not difference to me. Your original explanation left
out many things someone trying to help tech needs to know. No one can
automatically assume you are doing everything properly because you are
"acutely" familiar with the product. If you have been using these cards
since 1998 you have my sympathy.

Your problem could be that you are using your present one on the minimum
system requirements, which is where most people have problems witn any video
capture product. Other than that assumption I would suggest you get
something a little more advanced along with a better computer system.

I am "acutely" aware you don't like what I have said, but what the hell. I
really am "acutely" aware that I don't give a crap!!

For someone who apparently doesn't know much about ATI video capture
cards, or the Multimedia Center software, you seem awfully anxious to
chime in. It hasn't been helpful. Particularly since you prefer to
make wide assumptions in place of simply asking questions.

Who mentioned anything about a camcorder? Minimum system requirements?
Is that likely on a system running XP Media Center edition? (Are the
OEM's installing that OS on PII 300's these days?) Just for the
record, it's a brand new 3.2GHz system. Does it make sense to pursue a
hardware configuration issue, when the card is working fine with other
software?

Thanks for trying to "tech out" my problem, but I can't say much for
your powers of deductive reasoning, or troubleshooting strategies.

A_C

 

[Larry Johnson]

Saying the words Media Center software does not automatically envoke Windows
XP Media Center. ATI has long called their own software by Media something
or other...If you mean XP Media Center then say that! Aside from that you
stated nothing about your system...so, how is anyone to know what system you
are running on? It could be anything. If you didn't say P4, etc., etc. who's
to know you are using it.

I just call them as I see them. You want tech support for free, but expect
the tech's to be psychic's. So, I am supposed to be deductive with
absolutely no factual information beyond your inept ramblings about out of
sync audio. Look at how long it took for you to actually give system specs
in this matter...what a f**king moron you are.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Saying the words Media Center software does not automatically envoke Windows
XP Media Center. ATI has long called their own software by Media something or
other...If you mean XP Media Center then say that! Aside from that you stated
nothing about your system...so, how is anyone to know what system you are
running on? It could be anything. If you didn't say P4, etc., etc. who's to
know you are using it.

I just call them as I see them. You want tech support for free, but expect
the tech's to be psychic's. So, I am supposed to be deductive with absolutely
no factual information beyond your inept ramblings about out of sync audio.
Look at how long it took for you to actually give system specs in this
matter...what a f**king moron you are.

OK, just for fun, here are the first three lines - the very *first*
three lines - of Agent_C's original post in this thread:

ATI TV Wonder Pro
MMC 6.13
XP Media Center Edition

Nuff said?

Gino

 

[Agent_C]

Nuff said?

I think so. The guy obviously has a reading comprehension problem.

A_C

 

[James Anderson]

I think so. The guy obviously has a reading comprehension problem.

A_C

It's too bad that some people on these newsgroups have such a bad attitude.
I guess they get some kind of a kick out of blasting other people for no
good reason.

Anyway, to address your original question, I've also encountered problems
with sound and video out of sync. I have an ATI AIW 9600 installed here, but
I no longer use it for video captures. I also have a Pinnacle video capture
box attached to my system, and it does not have that problem. The problem
seems to be software, not hardware, and the Pinnacle box doesn't use any of
the ATI software..

I checked the Microsoft Knowledge Base and found some information about
video/audio sync problems caused by some obscure software features. I didn't
really understand what they were talking about, but I didn't pursue it
further since I no longer have the problem. For starters, take a look at MS
KB article #887131.

 

[johns]

I have the same problem with my Hauppauge PVR 350. And I keep
getting the "it must be your fault, you dumbass" replies from everybody
too. It is posted all over the web, but when I call Hauppauge, they
swear
they never heard of such a thing. My system is a top game box, and the
350 has hardware encoding, decoding, and should have none of these
sync problems ... but it does, and it gets worse and worse as I view
TV programs. I can shut the Win2000 program down, and restart it,
and it is in sync, but within 5 minutes, it gets noticably out of sync.
The know-it-alls will push their bullshit and registry edits, but none
of them can fix this. It is NOT any of the drivers. It is NOT the OS or
version of directx. It is NOT the video card. It is NOT the mobo, ram,
or cpu. My game box will kick the everloving shit out of anything
any of these experts have, and it runs great in all functions and games
with the exception of this one sync problem. My guess is that with
some video streams, the sound is stripped off the video signal and
recorded to the hard drive, and then merely played back over the
video signal, and the whole operation is suppose to be fast enough
that you won't notice the delay. Well it is not, and for some unknown
reason. Possibly, the sound replay is being delayed by other background
ops ... maybe even anti-virus could be intercepting and checking the
sound file for viruses ... something like that. More than likely it is
a system level background op, and which one is a good question.
I suppose MSconfig with all those processes shut down might give
a clue, but I'm tired of chasing the stupid thing. One thing I notice
is
it doesn't happen on all shows ( and for you know-it-alls who can't
read, I did not say for ALL CHANNELS ... morons. I said for all shows.
)
Movies on TV are the worst. Commercials never show a sync problem.
That is a real mystery ... that different shows on TV have a different
signal format ???? And when I make recordings, there is no sync
problem .. ever.

johns

 

[Dromiz]

Well that is plain too bad for you.
People offered you help and all you do is flame them. Shows you do not
need our help so figure it out yourself.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

You seem to have answered in the wrong thread...Your post doesn't seem
relevant to the post you replied to or to anything else in this thread,
for that matter.

 

[Bill's News]

I have the same problem with my Hauppauge PVR 350. And I keep
getting the "it must be your fault, you dumbass" replies from
everybody too. It is posted all over the web, but when I call
Hauppauge, they swear
they never heard of such a thing.

<snip>

This just might be a more common problem than many realize. I use the
H250 PCI in a 2gp4SP-512 tower and their USB2 connected to
3.2gp4DP-512 laptop. I use the same version of WinTV2K on both
systems to capture.

As I seldom "see" the recording window, I've noticed but a few times
that either or both systems will display as if they were in time-shift
mode (many minutes behind the broadcast material) and that the display
of the material will stutter (I run captures muted, so I've no idea
how the sound relates to the picture). As others have stated, the
captured material is perfect - only the on-screen display during
capture is erratic.

I've had very good support from Hauppauge on the few occasions I've
found it necessary to ask them for help, but in this case they
expressed they were unable to come up with an answer. They did
suggest that: press the pause button twice and the displayed image
should resynch with the broadcast image. It did!!

The only negative event encountered during this phenomenon was one
time, when prematurely ending a recording, the resulting file was
truncated at the point of display. Since then, I either allow the
recording to complete or use the double pause press to get back in
synch before stopping.

 

[William]

I've run into lip sync problems too on my system. Sometimes its real bad on
playback video. One problem though, I am trained to notice this problem
having a video production background. So it drives me batty when I hear /
see it, even in small delays. They make audio delay lines for this. In video
production, it is caused by sending video through frame stores,
(synchronization and stabilization systems in video production mixers and
editors) it causes the video to be delayed by 1/60 of a second each time it
goes through one.

I've noticed when recording video, the source you are listening to on your
computer can make a real difference. Such as 'Line in' verses 'Wave' in.
Wave is delayed due to the processing of the audio - think of it as audio
after processing through the recorder. You can get a real good echo effect
remixing these signals in an audio mixing program while recording a
video/audio program.

I've notices a REAL BIG DELAY when the computer gets busy. The video
shutters while the audio just keeps on going. I attribute it to the
on-board audio processing on my ASUS motherboard verses the video processing
on the ATI x850. The motherboard audio wins out over the video for priority.
I just twittle my fingers for a few moments until things catch up and go on.
I have wondered if a new audio card might ride me of this lip sync problem
for me.

Some TV and DVD playbacks will have this problem to different levels.
Believe me when I tell you all is not perfect when it comes to video / audio
timing (lip-sync) coming off of your favorite TV station or DVD. If your
computer has a small problem, it might add to what is already a small
problem from the source you are recording.

While I am typing this message, I am watching my AverMedia TV card on my
monitor and noticing a small but noticeable delay in the video. Darn, I
haven't taken notice of that for months. The video is definitely delayed.

William